I haven’t posted any album designs in a while or any weddings so here is the design of the next wedding that should be posted. I know I’m way behind but what’s the rush. Good things come to those who wait. I hope you enjoy the layout.
Category Archives: albums
Wedding Album Design I Recently Finished
I used my new video editing software I bought recently to make the slideshow video. I know it’s a little primitive, but I’m still learning how to use it. I used Adobe CS5 and Pixel Creator pro to make the album design. The images for the design came from a wedding a shot back on August 7, 2010, Miranda and Cecil’s wedding. The wedding turned out awesome and I can’t wait to see her finished album in book form. I hope you enjoy the design. It’s time for me to start on another design for my December 18th wedding.
Well my video embed stopped working so I had to take it off,butt here’s the design.
The House-Butts Wedding Album Design
You may have seen this design before. If you’ve met me at a bridal show or come to my house before, you’ve seen this design because it is one of my samples. It became a new sample when I accidentally put Nov. 8, 2009 instead of Nov. 8, 2008 on the cover. Yes, I do a lot of stupid things sometimes, but don’t worry I had a new one printed for my client. I would never make a client take an album they had a problem with. That’s why, in most cases, I work very hard with my couples to make sure their album is perfect for them.
I would love to hear from brides and even other photographers about their thoughts on wedding albums. Anything from cost to image selection, nothings off-limits. For example, I let my clients pick their own images for the album. A lot of photographers don’t. I understand the reasons why-clients take too long to pick their images, the images they pick aren’t very good for the looks of the album, clients pick too many posed family shots etc. Even so, I still let my clients pick. It’s not my album, it’s their album and if they like it that’s all that matters. So here’s another example design for you to enjoy.
Enjoying the water
Pullen Wedding album design
Every time I post an album design I get a whole bunch of hits on my blog. So I’m guessing people like to look at sample album designs. So here’s another one. The wedding was back in April and the couple have hadtheir fiinished album for about 6 months now. They ordered their album pretty quickly and got it just a few months after the wedding. Every couple gets to pick their own images and get to make changes to the layout before it is printed. If you have any questions about my album designs don’t hesitate to ask.
Maria and Zach’s Album Design
Here is another album design I finished over the holidays. It is from the wedding I shot on July 19, 2009. You can still see all the images from this wedding under client proofing on my website. In case you didn’t know, all of my client sites are open to the public so you don’t need a password to look at them. You will need to put in your email address, but don’t worry, I don’t market to those email addresses. They are only used for saving favorites on the client site.
I loved the images from this wedding. Maria was very adventurous and so was her husband Zach. The pictures always come out better when the couple is willing to have fun. They picked wonderful images for the album. Most couples will pick a lot of posed family images. I discourage this. I think the posed family images belong on your wall and not in your wedding album. It’s OK to have a few; maybe a page worth, but the rest should be images that tell the story of your wedding day. You want your children and your grandchildren to be able to look at your album and know what your wedding day was like. You want them to be able to feel what you felt and posed photos don’t convey those emotions. I hope you enjoy the layout!
Recent wedding album layout
Below is a recent wedding album layout I finished. It was for a panorama style album with twelve pages. The couple picked their own images to go in the album and then I put the design online for them to see. I normally suggest two images per page side as a nice balance so the album doesn’t get too cluttered. So a twelve page album would have about 48 images in it and twenty page album would have around 80 images. The great thing about all the albums that I offer is that the same design can be used in all of them. You can order a nice Zook Book for yourself and use the same design in one of the layflat albums to give to parents. I discount the duplicate albums 50% when you use the same design because most of the price of the albums is my time spent designing.
If you’ve ordered an album with me and I still have your design you can order duplicates anytime and get them 50% off list price. I don’t keep album designs long though. I always need to make room for new weddings coming in so the designs only get stored for maybe a year. Check out this couples design, I hope you enjoy it!
Another Recent Wedding Album layout
Tiffany turned her album picks in faster than anyone ever. Her wedding was just in April and she already has her finished album. Way to go Tiffany. I try to make my albums look more consistant than I did in the past so that the client can have a better Idea of what their album is going to look like. I of course throw in some personal flair here and there but the big picture stays the same. I do need to update my samples I show. But that will have to wait. Here’s the layout I hope it helps inspire brides and other photographers.
Recent Album layout and Wedding album advice for couples
I get alot of my ideas for album layouts by looking at other photographers’ layouts so to keep the sharing going I thought I’d put one of my layouts on my blog. I’ll put some other ones up too, later. I use pixel creator pro to help me with my designs. I find it easier than starting from scratch in photoshop. I like to keep my designs simple and most of the time I start with a black background. I think black brings out the color of the images more.
Before I post the layout I wanted to talk about ordering an album. I’ve noticed that couples put off choosing the images for their albums for a really long time. I’m not sure why but I would like to get to the bottom of it. In fact, in most cases the only way I can get my clients to pick the images for their albums is by sending them out a notice telling them that I’m going to close out their contract and they’ll lose their album if they don’t order it by a certain date. I’m not sure if it’s because their lives are just really busy, they forget about it, they’re just tired of all the wedding stuff, they are afraid of picking bad images, or a combo of all of these. After spending so much money on an album I would want to get mine right away.
I’m going to give you a few reasons why you shouldn’t wait so long. The first one is because after a year or so has passed the photographer is no longer going to remember your wedding or your personalities anymore. It’s really hard to design an album when you no longer remember who those people were to the couple and how the images are important and relate to each other. The photograper wants your album to tell your story and it’s really hard to do that when you can’t remember the story anymore.
Another reason is that the album you ordered may no longer be available and you may have to pick another one that may be more expensive or not be exactly like the one you originally ordered. Products change constantly and get discontinued. Ordering your album quickly after the wedding insures you’ll get the same album that you originally picked.
The last reason I’m going to give today, even though there are many more, is that prices change. Album companies tend to raise their prices at least once a year and when that happens the photographer has to raise their price too. You may have paid $800 originally but if you wait a year or more to pick your images your photographer may have to add additional costs to you or downgrade your album because of price changes.
My advice to couples is if you have an album in your package, order it soon after the wedding so the above doesn’t happen to you. I would suggest within a few weeks of the wedding while it’s still fresh in your photographer’s mind. Because couples take so long picking their images, alot of photographers no longer let couples pick the images for their own albums. The photographer picks them. Photographers feel that the albums get done quicker that way and that the albums will look better if the photographer picks the images because we pick images that tell the story and not images we feel obligated to put in because of family issues. Anyway, my two cents about albums I hope you find it useful. Enjoy the layout.
Just finished a father’s Day Album Layout
Last year I made a mother’s day album for my son’s karate teacher. It turned out really nice. Well, Lucinda saw it and asked if I could make a father’s day album for her. I finished it today I hope she likes it. You can check out what it’s going to look like below. An album like this makes a wonderful keepsake. Just keep in mind it takes a lot of time to make one so you have to start planning early. It’s a good idea to schedule the session in March or early April so the photographer has plenty of time to design the album. It’s definitely not something you can do last minute.
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